Saturday, March 15, 2008

You know what I think of the American Psychological Association. I think it should have its head examined. Or, at the very least, the likely non-parent who issued the anti-spanking report at the group's summit on violence and abuse in relationships should be held in a rubber room for his own protection and the protection of the next generation of Americans. Murray Straus, who bills himself as "a spanking expert," told the summit he has uncovered evidence to suggest spanking can lead children into risky sexual behaviors and sexual deviancy. He says parents should never spank.

Now what is so ironic about this is that the APA even acknowledges there is something called "risky sexual behavior" or "sexual deviancy." I wish the group would define those terms for us, because it is the APA that rewrote its definitions back in the 1970s to conform with the political agenda of homosexual activists who insist there is nothing risky about their behavior and certainly nothing deviant about it. So what is sexual deviancy, according to the study?

* verbally or physically coercing a dating partner to have sex;

* premarital sex without a condom;

* masochistic sex such as spanking during sex.

I think the S&M crowd is going to have a field day with Mr. Straus and the APA for this one. How long do you think they will be permitted to get away with this kind of hate speech? Imagine - "sexual deviancy"!

Many folks thought it was hysterical when WND columnist Jim Rutz toyed with the idea that eating soy makes you homosexual. The "gay" blogs had a laugh riot with that one. My colleagues in the news business thought that was the funniest thing they ever read. Yet, the story about Straus' research that spanking makes one an S&M pervert has been met with nothing but reverence by reporters and pundits. Listen to this quote from Straus: "If a person says, 'I was spanked, and I don't have any interest in bondage and discipline sex,' that's correct. But it's not because spanking is OK, it's because they're one of the lucky ones."

Let's see, tens of millions of children are spanked in the U.S. and maybe a few thousand people in San Francisco like whips and chains. I'm willing to bet it's the latter who were not spanked. And that's why they want it. In fact, I can prove that spanking doesn't lead to S&M. Is spanking on the decline in our society? Yes. Is S&M on the increase? Yes.

It used to be that practically everyone spanked their kids. That's the way it was 40 years ago. It was normal and healthy. "Spare the rod, spoil the child," was the conventional wisdom of the day, and there were precious few S&M bars around in those days. In fact, no one even knew what S&M was. But with the popularity of Benjamin Spock's child-rearing tips came a decline in spanking. Within a decade, came the rise of sexual deviancy in all forms.

I can prove it another way, too. God says parents should spank their children and be firm disciplinarians. That's really enough for me. But I'm sure it won't be for the American Psychological Association. Members of that group are probably ready to have me committed for taking the Bible quite literally as the inspired, inerrant Word of our Creator.

I actually believe that God in heaven understands human nature better than the politically correct shrinks at the APA - who cower and bend to the whims of activist pressure groups, even to the point of redefining what mental illness is. Imagine that.

The slaughter of eight young yeshiva students and the wounding of nine others by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem last week was a cold-blooded act of evil. It is difficult to make sense of the depraved fanaticism of someone like Ala Abu Dhaim, who calmly entered the school's busy library, took three guns from a box, and sprayed the room with hundreds of bullets, emptying clip after clip until finally being shot dead by an off-duty military officer and a part-time student who heard the gunfire and came running.

Even more perverse and revolting that Abu Dhaim's massacre, howevere, was the behavior that followed it. In Gaza, the news that unarmed Jewish students, most of them kids, had been gunned down while at study set off paroxysms of joy. Thousands of jubilant Palestinians whooped it up in Gaza's streets, firing guns in the air to celebrate and distributing candy to passersby. Many residents went to mosques to offer prayers of thanksgiving before joining the festivities. Television cameras recorded the revelry; you can see it for yourself on YouTube.

Hamas, the terror organization that controls Gaza, issued a statement applauding the bloodshed. "We bless the [Jerusalem] operation," it said. "It will not be the last."

Hamas is monstrous, but give it this much: It makes no secret of its bloodlust. The same cannot always be said of Fatah, the other main faction in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah is headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, whose polished spokesman, Saeb Erekat, was quick to assure journalists -- in English, for Western consumption -- that Abbas condemned the killings and "reiterated his condemnation of all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis."

Yet just a few days before the yeshiva massacre, Abbas had told the Jordanian daily Al-Dustur -- in Arabic, for Arab consumption -- that he is against terrorist attacks only for tactical reasons "at this time" and that "in the future, things may change." He boasted of his long involvement with PLO violence -- "I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965" -- and claimed with pride that Fatah "taught resistance to everyone, including Hezbollah, who trained in our military camps."

Abbas's supposed condemnation notwithstanding, the Palestinian Authority's official daily newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, hailed the killer on its front page, prominently displaying his picture and identifying him as a "shahid" -- a term of approval and reverence denoting an Islamic martyr. And the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent Fatah subsidiary identified by the US government as a terrorist organization, praised the slaughter as a "heroic operation."

Meanwhile, the family of Abu Dhaim erected a mourning tent near their East Jerusalem home, where, amid banners of Hamas and Hezbollah, visitors came to honor the dead terrorist. Incredibly, the Israeli government made no effort to prevent this public display of respect for a mass-murderer; it insisted only that the Hamas and Hezbollah flags be taken down.

By contrast, when Abu Dhaim's relatives in Jordan put up a similar tent to receive well-wishers, Jordanian officials ordered them to dismantle it immediately. The terrorist's uncle was indignant. "We were hoping that people would come to congratulate us on the martyrdom of my nephew," he said. "This is a heroic operation that must be celebrated by everyone." It is a mark of how feckless the Israeli leadership has become that the Arab government of Jordan shows more common sense than the Jewish state in reacting to those who would lionize the killer of Jewish kids.

And that is indicative of the most perverse behavior of all: the refusal of Israel to face the fact that it is in a war for survival -- a war that it will win only by fighting and defeating its enemy, not by clinging blindly to a phony "peace process" that has brought it nothing but terror, tears, and a mounting toll of death.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's reaction to last week's massacre of the innocents was to announce that he would "not give up on making a tremendous effort to take another significant, important, and dramatic step that might bring us to an opportunity for real reconciliation."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry spouted the same drivel: "These terrorists are trying to destroy the chances of peace," its spokesman said, "but we certainly will continue the peace talks." The White House chimed in too: "The most important thing is that the peace process continue and that the parties are committed to it."

Wrong. The most important thing is to recognize that there is a war against Israel by enemies profoundly committed to its elimination -- enemies who regard negotiations, concessions, and all the trappings of the "peace process" as evidence that the Jews are in retreat, and that hitting them even harder will bring victory even closer. That is why there was such jubilation in Gaza. And why last week's atrocity in Jerusalem was only the latest such horror -- not the last.

Hillary Clinton's personal life has long made a mockery of traditional family values - her betrothal to a serial womanizer, the refusal to have a traditional wedding, and her smears of the females who later accused her husband of sexual impropriety.

Let's recall her acrid put-down of stay-at-home moms: "I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do is fulfill my profession." And when Jennifer Flowers claimed she had had a 12-year affair with Bill, Hillary ludicrously remarked, "I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." If that's not contempt for women in traditional roles, I don't know what is.

And no surprise, Hillary Clinton's vision for families is, might we say, unconventional. And it's not just her opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment that would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

Back when she was a student at Yale Law School, Hillary wrote in the Harvard Educational Review that "marriage, slavery, and the Indian reservation system" constitute dependency arrangements that must be abolished. Ridiculing the notion that families are "private, nonpolitical units," she demanded that we "remodel" the time-honored institution. Two decades later she wrote It Takes a Village, the socialist manifesto that justifies governmental intrusion into the most intimate aspects of family life.

And Clinton's 2003 book Living History reads like the autobiography of a woman obsessed with feminist activism, a power-mad princess in a pantsuit. She boasts immodestly, "I represented a fundamental change in the way women functioned in our society."

Remember that Hillary Rodham Clinton, former protege of Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky, is at heart a cultural Marxist. Inducing a fundamental change in motherhood would be insufficient to assure the social transformation that she seeks. Time to put dear ol' dad on the chopping block.

European social philosopher Wyndham Lewis once noted: "The male, the Father, is in all these revolutions, the enemy. It is he that has been cast to represent authority. Therefore in modern revolutionary Europe it was he, the male head-of-the-family, who has been aimed at in every insurrection. The break-up of the Family...must begin and end with the eclipse of the Father principle." So no surprise, Hillary Clinton has trained her sights on fatherhood.

A few weeks ago researcher Anna Sarkadi published a review in the Acta Pediatrica journal on the impact of fathers on children's developmental outcomes. The studies showed paternal engagement helped to reduce behavioral problems in boys and psychological problems in girls. Sarkadi concludes a father's "active and regular engagement with the child predicts a range of positive outcomes."

But Hillary's Living History leans over backwards to ignore any meaningful role of dads. On page 132 she writes about "issues affecting women, children, and families." On page 380 she repeats the identical phrase: "issues affecting women, children, and families." And on page 269 she notes "Women handle a large share of the responsibility for the welfare of their families," again ignoring the essential role of fathers.

Then there's the abortion issue, where Hillary has staked out the most radical of positions, even supporting partial-birth abortion and a teenage girl's right to get an abortion absent parental permission.

Abortion-on-demand strikes a chilling blow to a father's natural rights. As Justice White wrote in his stirring dissent to Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, "It is truly surprising that the majority finds in the United States Constitution, as it must in order to justify the result it reaches, a rule that the State must assign a greater value to a mother's decision to cut off a potential human life by abortion than to a father's decision to let it mature into a live child." Dr. Alan Carlson of Howard University adds cogently, "on the question of abortion, the father is irrelevant, with no more interest in the fate of the baby than a stranger from Mars."

In her famous 1993 "politics of meaning" speech, Clinton called for a redefinition of personhood itself. She told the startled audience, "Let us be willing to remold society by refining what it means to be a human being in the 20th century."

As presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has billed herself as the proponent of "real" change. One has to wonder where her "real" change will lead us -- to the hollow shell of a family structure that all but shuns traditional notions of fatherhood and motherhood?

Nurses need shelters from attack in black communities but the Leftist State government doesn't want to know about it

An internal Queensland Health report on nurses' security in remote locations in the Torres Strait has recommended that secure "bomb shelters" be provided for staff where they could hide when under attack. The report, which was provided to Queensland Health 16 months ago but tabled in parliament by Health Minister Stephen Robertson only on Wednesday, described the risk level posed to most employees working in the Torres Strait as "very high" or "extreme". As revealed this week by The Australian, the report has not been acted on since it was compiled in October 2006.

Mr Robertson tabled the report after The Australian revealed the case of a nurse who worked alone on Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait. Last month, the 27-year-old woman was attacked while she slept and raped by an intruder.

The full report details how "strongrooms" needed to be established in each isolated facility. "A strongroom is a selected area within a building that has two exits, but all walls and doors are built to a standard that can keep a staff member safe until help (exit strategy) arrives," the report states. "This room should be self-contained and hold emergency bottled water and pre-packed food. It should have several lines of communication ... be able to withstand physical aggression and be fire resistant." The report says that if these initiatives were put in place, staff could also keep patients safe if under threat of violence.

On Wednesday, Mr Robertson said that a bureaucrat in Queensland Health had not passed on the report, but yesterday he asked the Crime and Misconduct Commission to investigate after a former district manager in the Torres Strait said he never received the risk assessment report. Mr Robertson had earlier accused the officer, who has since retired, of being responsible for the inaction on the report which saw it "lie on a desk for 16months".

The Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association weighed into the controversy yesterday, saying there were clearly unacceptable inadequacies in the safety of health staff working in the Torres Strait. AMA president Dr Chris Davis said his organisation was concerned that Queensland Health appeared to have been made aware of the issues but had decided not to take action. "Queensland Health has a duty of care to provide a safe workplace for its employees," Dr Davis said. "The Queensland Government is very quick to ensure that employers discharge their obligations under the Act but as an employer themselves have not done this."

Nurses in remote communities have issued an ultimatum to the Government, demanding their facilities be brought up to safe and secure standards by March 28 or they will refuse to staff the island community health centres. The Queensland Nurses Union has also said there will be no more single-nurse assignments in island communities, and that at least two must be appointed at all times. If that is not done, they will provide only fly-in/fly-out day clinics.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here